Hello again, dear reader! It has been nearly a month-and-a-half since my last update, so I figured I owed you a little explanation. One, I got married on June 19. Two, we went on our honeymoon to Yellowstone, which has no Internet access and practically zero cellular signals. Three, our Internet connection here at the new apartment was just yesterday turned on and this morning is the first I’ve seen of WordPress since our wedding! Well, I kept an account of our trip on little scraps of paper in my purse, so I thought it best to record them here for you all to see. Enjoy!
(Warning: this is a really long entry, so I hope you have the time to read it!)
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The wedding went off with only one hitch—and that was ours. It was a whirlwind! We don’t remember all of it. But we do know it happened, and there are plenty of photographs and videos which bear witness to the fact.
Sunday we took it easy, sleeping in until nearly nine and then packing for our trip. Check-in at the airport was uneventful, so we sat at the gate for over an hour before boarding. During that time, the airline employee on-duty called Evan over to the counter… and bumped us up to first class! So we were in the very front two seats with lots of leg room and a friendly lady across the aisle… but only for an hour. Our plane experienced some mechanical difficulties and so the pilots landed us in Memphis. We thought it would only be a few minutes getting fixed, but we stayed at gate C20 for about three hours! At one point we had everything sorted out—as soon as the test flight was finished, we would fly to Denver and spend the night there, arriving in Jackson Hole the next morning. However, when the test flight yielded no answers (canceling our flight) Evan dashed back to the counter to get us another hotel voucher for the night. This time, we would be staying at the Radisson Hotel nearby and flying to Denver the following morning with a connecting flight to Jackson Hole.
The Radisson was plush—in-house restaurant, Sleep Number bed (king size), free shuttle to the airport…we definitely liked it. Not bad, since we couldn’t do anything else.
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Breakfasted at the Radisson on Monday morning with bleary eyes and little energy. Once again, checking in at the airport went smoothly, and we boarded the plane on time. Our seats were separate, but as long as we got to Denver we didn’t care. Upon taxiing to the runway, though, we were met with another delay—a maintenance panel was open and we had to return to the terminal. Not only that, but before we even left the fuel truck mistakenly tried to top off our tank instead of the one at the next gate! Other than that, we took off with no incidents and began our journey afresh.
A little over 30 minutes outside of Denver. I have read both the SkyWest magazine and the Sky Mall catalogue, and I can hear Evan speaking with the woman next to him who is holding a baby. Earlier she walked the child up the aisle for a change of scenery and on her way back told me, “Your husband is very patient.” This is a short flight but I am impatient to be with him again. Not long now—and for our connecting flight to Jackson we have seats next to each other. On this plane are several of the same unfortunates who joined us on our hop from Birmingham to Memphis. Kind of reminds me of LOST, in a way. Except so far we haven’t crashed on an island.
Smooth landing, but not without a mad dash to the opposite end of the Denver airport. We disembarked at Gate 92 and only had 20 minutes before our connection took off from Gate 29. Thank goodness for those moving sidewalks, or we never would have made it on time. But we got there and got our seats! Except our luggage didn’t. So we planned to file a claim and hoped it would arrive that day.
The flight to Jackson on the 747 was nice, except for the slight bit of motion sickness I had near the beginning. But after a can of Sprite, I felt much better. We watched an episode of 30 Rock, listened to some music, and sat glued to the window for our final descent. Mountains all around, and with snow on them! To see such a sight in the summer is a drastic diversion from the smothering Alabama heat.
Our hotel is quite plush and cozy. We have a room with a king-sized bed, Jacuzzi, sitting area, and gas fireplace. It’s a shame we didn’t arrive sooner. We drove up to Teton Village to ride the tram up to the peak of Rendezvous Mountain. What a sight! One hundred eighty degree view of snow-capped peaks! We had quite a time trying to cling to the bald ridge because of a chilling west wind. Hiking a little way down the loose rocks was okay, but we wore ourselves our climbing back to the top. At least by that time we were good and ready for dinner.
There was a restaurant next to the inn that served some wild game dishes, so we walked over there after returning from the Tetons. Dinner was outstanding! We ordered a plate of fried green tomatoes and an entree of mixed game—buffalo prime rib, elk chops, and venison bratwurst. Best meat we’d ever tasted! By then we were really tired, so we called it a night.
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Tuesday’s breakfast was in the hotel lobby and was greatly enhanced by our leftover meat from dinner. Back in the room we planned out our day and then checked out around ten o’clock. Drove into town, parked by the square, and happened upon a historical downtown tour which gave us lots of neat information (for instance, did you know that at one time Jackson’s town council was made up entirely of women, and that a female sheriff was the catalyst in cleaning up the center of town and making a town square? Didn’t think so.). After that, we walked around on our own and found a cute little hotel. So on a whim we booked a room for Saturday night and canceled our reservation at the Wyoming Inn. For lunch we ate at the Million-Dollar Cowboy Bar, where the barstools were saddles and the tabletops were fashioned from cross-sections of giant hardwood trees.
Then it was park time! The scenery was spectacular on our drive in from the south entrance of Yellowstone. We stopped several times to take pictures and video of the surroundings and their inhabitants. The last big stop was at the Mud Volcano area where we saw several hot sulfur springs and bubbling mud puddles. Once we arrived at Canyon Lodge, our board for the next two nights, we ate dinner and planned the next day’s activities.
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Wednesday was full and exciting. Ate breakfast in the room from provisions we bought Tuesday night at the general store. Then we dressed for hiking, picked up our picnic lunches from the dining room, and headed over to the trails on the south rim of Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. We hiked the Clear Lake trail through meadows and woods and were rewarded with our very own buffalo sighting! As we admired a bubbling thermal vent, a huge lump of the background scenery rolled itself onto its feet and stood up. It was massive! We froze for a second, not sure whether to stay put, run away, or proceed down the trail. But it lay back down and turned a drowsy eye toward us, so we cautiously passed by (it was only five yards away) and continued onward. After what seemed no time, we emerged on the canyon’s south rim and enjoyed spectacular views all the way back to the car. We met an older couple from Austria and saw them a few times on our stop-and-go trek. It was his fourth time in the US as a tourist. Once we parted ways, Evan and I trudged back to the parking lot where we scarfed down our lunches and drove to the lodge for a nap.
We took a lengthy drive that afternoon up and out the northeast gate to the park. I was reminded of my family’s trip into the park by that same road when we pulled our camper between the soaring bluffs and sheer dropoffs. Once out the gate, we drove through Cooke City befor turning onto the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway—and boy, was it ever! The road took us around a lush valley and then the rims of the surrounding mountains. Different landscapes entirely, and differently beautiful. The only trees were down in the valleys by streams; and they were nearly all deciduous as opposed to the conifers which cover Yellowstone. The rest of the landscape consisted of low scrub and grass, with the occasional stunted evergreen on a hillside.
We stopped in Cody, Wyoming for dinner at Zapata’s a New Mexico-style Mexican restaurant. Evan ate the green chili and I had the 1880-style chile relleno. They stuffed the pepper with cheese, scrambled an egg in it, and folded it into an omelet. Delicious! So then we picked up dessert at the candy shop next door and began our trek back to the park. This road took us through the Buffalo Bill national park, through tunnels and past a huge water reservoir. We made a brief stop in Wapiti for gas (our rental car got 37 mpg!) and continued westward. It was certainly a feast for the eyes as we saw snowy peaks adjacent to wooded ones. At one point we rounded a shoulder and were nearly blinded by the sunset. It looked just like the quintessential ending to an adventurous day out West… which it was.
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Thursday we did—guess what—more sightseeing! Checked out of Canyon Lodge and headed north to Mammoth Hot Springs via Tower-Roosevelt. The oncoming lane near Mt. Washburn was partially blocked by a buffalo leading a short parade of cars. On we went, stopping here and there for photographs, until we reached the springs. Many of the terraces were dormant, but a select few were colorfully active. After leaving there, we drove on down to Norris with a couple of stopps: Obsidian Cliff and Roaring Mountain. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see much obsidian due to the previous scavengers, and the roar was more like a bubbling. But we did end up in a line of cars behind—guess what—a buffalo.
Next stop was the Norris geyser basin. There were so many colorful springs and streams! Most notable were the Whirligig Geyser and the green-and-yellow stream emanating from its pool. Further downstream as the water cooled, the green gradually faded, leaving only the pale yellow thermophiles. We hoped to see Steamboat Geyser erupt (the largest geyser in the world, I think), but it just spewed a bit. It may be huge, but its last major eruption was in May of 2005. Both tired, we decided to skip the bookstore and resume our journey to Old Faithful. Between Norris and Madison there was road construction, so we sat there for around twenty minutes waiting to be flagged through.
Upon arriving at Old Faithful Inn, we checked into our suite and went upstairs. How luxurious! Two queen beds, gorgeous tiled bathroom, sitting room (with a Keurig coffee maker, stocked refrigerator, and sack of yummy snacks—all complimentary), and an easy view of Old Faithful itself. After a brief rest, we took a hike around the geyser basin. One geyser I’d never heard of before, the Grand, had a crowd sitting around it waiting for its eruption. The sign said it was the world’s largest predictable geyser, so we sat there too. But it kept sitting there not doing anything, so we moved on through the park. Saw several interesting formations and pretty pools, and finally made it to Morning Glory Pool just before rain droplets began to fall. That and the swift tailwind propelled us along the mile of trail back to the Inn. We were just in time to clean up and get dressed for our dinner reservation. Evan escorted me downstairs and we were seated next to a window with a view of our wing of the inn (the newer one, built in 1913). Dinner was delicious! Evan ate the trout and I had the “pork osso buco” which was a pork shank the size of a small roast! I took half of it to go. By then it was past nine, so we went on to bed.
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Friday morning we drove back to the Lake area on the West Thumb for a scenic cruise. Beautiful scenery, and aside from the Lake Hotel and Lodge, the shoreline appeared completely untouched. Our guide, Bruce, told us several interesting stories from the lake’s past (some of which were true), and the hour-long tour was over before we realized it. We drove over to the general store Bruce pointed out earlier and found some lovely souvenirs: a bottle of Yellowstone label elderberry mead and some Yellowstone huckleberry syrup. We wanted a puzzle, but none of the ones there were distinctively of the park. So we thought about getting a jigsaw made out of one of our photos. From there we just took a (mostly nonstop) drive back to Old Faithful Inn via Canyon, Norris and Madison.
Just before reaching our destination, we pulled off to drive past Firehole Lake. It was fairly impressive: an entire small lake simmering and steaming! But the best part about it was when we stopped to stretch our legs at Surprise Pool. As we stepped up to it, we heard an “aOOga” over to our left, and (surprise!) up drove five Model A Fords! They were from the Pony Express Association (or something like that) and I guess they were taking an old-time tour of the park!
We got back to the Inn and decided to take off to Grand Geyser, but it was definitely not erupting anytime soon. So we headed back and watched Old Faithful from a distance before returning to our room and working the crossword puzzle in the USA Today. Eventually we figured we’d eat some supper and go to the bar. But it was still early-ish in the evening when we finished that, so for lack of anything else to do we bought a puzzle from the gift store and put together as much as we could before we got too tired.
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Saturday we woke up with the alarm clock at 5:30 AM to go driving in search of wildlife. It took us long enough, but eventually we reached Hayden Valley and were met by a herd of buffalo cows with their calves! There must have been at least thirty calves there, and they didn’t mind us one bit. One of them jogged right up to our car and sniffed at the headlights before darting off to follow its mother! It was a really beautiful sight. But eventually the bovine parade was over, so we drove on to Canyon Lodge for breakfast.
Once we returned to Old Faithful Inn, we learned that the Grand Geyser wasn’t expected to erupt until around 3:30 that afternoon. We didn’t really want to wait that long to leave, so we packed up and headed south back to Jackson. And that’s when I knew something wasn’t right. My stomach felt funny, like I hadn’t digested anything all day. But we went ahead to Judge Roy Bean’s Old Time Photos and got in line anyway.
Let me say, that was a humiliating couple of hours! Throughout the process of choosing a costume, posing for pictures, changing back into street clothes, and selecting an image to purchase, I vomited four times—once in each of three trash cans inside and the last time on the sidewalk. I was a wreck! Evan just about had to carry me into the hotel, I was so weak. (as I mentioned to him later, he didn’t realize he’d be fulfilling the “in sickness” part of our vows this soon!) Like the very caring husband he is, he made sure I was comfortable, gastronomically stable, and reachable by phone before he left to eat some dinner (I couldn’t yet bear the smell of food). He returned with some Dramamine for me, so I was out cold most of the night (except for the conversation we had in my sleep and the noise from the bar across the street).
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Sunday morning I awoke to the sound of the bells from St. John’s Episcopal Church next door. And to my own throbbing head telling me, as if I didn’t know, that I was dehydrated. Although my stomach felt much better, my body ached from those convulsions and I was too weak for much exertion. So I lay in bed as long as I could before showering and packing (check-out was at eleven). Evan was already hungry, and I was beginning to feel a tinge so, so we puttered around town looking for a suitable lunch. Rather, he drove while I slept. We ended up at the Mangy Moose in Teton Village, where I managed most of a slice of pizza while Evan ate his fish and chips. Since we had about four hours to kill before our flight boarded, we found a picnic table in the shade where I could rest.
Eventually it was time to go to the airport, so I slept on the way there as well. Of course, I had to wake up enough to get through check-in and security, but by then I was doing much better anyway. And we had a celebrity sighting there in that tiny airport! Evan looked up his picture for comparison, and sure enough it was BJ Novak (seen in Inglorious Basterds, Knocked Up and several episodes of The Office).
The rest of our trip was uneventful—no mad dashes, no missed connections, just a stroll to Gate 88 and a bite to eat at the deli next to it. We arrived home, at our home, sometime after midnight—not ready to face the real world the next day, but certainly glad for the time we’d had together.
So grateful for the weekend! All too often we live together, but separated by to-do lists. Beloved comes home from work, we eat dinner, then I leave him to do dishes and amuse himself while I hole myself up in the office and study. Every few days or so we have to purposefully set aside our work (which never ends) and just enjoy one another. I believe this is vital in a marriage, because while there is always work to do, your spouse is not always available for quality time. So please, take the night off now and then! It does wonders for your sanity.
